Humans derive their ideas from impressions (sensory experiences) and the ideas they form are essentially recombinations or refinements of those impressions. In this sense, human creativity can be viewed as a process of combining, transforming, and reinterpreting past experiences (impressions).

So, if we look at it from this perspective, human thinking is not fundamentally different from LLMs in that both rely on existing material to create new ideas.

The main difference is that LLMs process text statistically, while humans interpret text in context, influenced by emotions, experiences, biases, and goals. LLMs' interpretation is probabilistic, not conceptual.

Additionally, revolutionary thinking often requires rejecting past ideas and forming new conceptual frameworks, but LLMs cannot reject prior data, they are bound by it.

At any rate, the question remains, are LLMs capable of revolutionary ideas just like humans?